Across the Sea of Time
by Meep the Changeling
Summary: Three nerds are summoned by a mysterious force to save a magical land by helping an Artificial Intelligence in it's a last ditch effort to save the world.
1. Prologue: A Time Paradox, and a Letter

Prologue: A Time Paradox, and a Letter

 **Author's Note**

This story is not a crossover with Star Trek. A few prereaders assumed it was and were disappointed when it turned out not to be. There is an ongoing joke involving Trek, it's the same joke which became the movie Galaxy Quest and is used for the same effect in universe. Like many things, it's just part of the many jokes for the underlying humor.

This story is a Science-Fantasy tale which combines High and Urban Fantasy with Space Opera, Humanity's Wake, and Planetary Romance, but also lampoons those genera a bit. It's done in the style of an old school 80's fantasy novel, with a dash of transhumanist philosophy for spice. While this is technically MLP fanfiction, it's an MLP that exists in an alternate universe which is basically Faerûn of Forgotten Realms fame. Don't know it? Think Lord of the Rings, only with more magic (for some awesome), then add ponies (for a laugh), now toss in some scifi (for more awesome). That's what this story is.

I hope you enjoy this silly tale, please tell me what you think!

* * *

 **~~~~~~o0o~~~~~~**  
 _Unknown - 12th of Harvestide '30 - Morning_

There is an old saying about life meant to tell young people they should think before they act. I'm sure you know it. 'Don't leap before you look.' Five simple words of perfectly sage advice. That's the thing about sage advice though, it is often ignored by the people who give it to you.

Hell, we told everyone for years those five simple words. Schools taught long term planning, our entire civilization pushed the idea of moving forward once you understood something and never going in blind. We arrogantly believed our beloved Equestria would never make a truly terrible decision. Surely our rulers would think things through and bring us prosperity just as they had for the last four thousand years.

Then came the 5811th year of the Classical Era. On the 19th of Megan, somepony in the rural town of Ponyville walked into the wrong outhouse and blew the lid off the largest conspiracy anyone's ever seen. Our entire way of life, our government, the Princesses, all of it was the carefully controlled puppeteering of a shadow government. They called themselves the Tribunal, and their control over us was so absolute, not even Celestia herself knew they existed.

We immediately went to war with a righteous fury the likes of which had not been seen for ten thousand years. Every province, every city, every town erupted into chaos. The fighting was everywhere, but spread thin, it did not truly become hell. Hell came later.

The Tribunal was far more powerful than our Royal Guard. Spears and cannons were no match for dark sorcery and eldritch weapons. The vat grown Tribunal Magus burned through our soldiers like an office goes through copy paper. Yet after a year of constant bloodshed, every single last person in the nation rose up together in a unified force and scattered the Tribunal to the winds.

We thought we had won peace and prosperity. A return to the way things had been before. We were wrong.

So much of our way of life had depended on the Tribunal. We knew nothing of the real world, from the very beginning they had fabricated everything in our history books and controlled all news which went in and out of the nation. We were completely ill equipped to handle diplomacy with other nations, and with the reputation the Tribunal left us with, no one would deal with us. But worst of all, our shield was gone.

Four thousand years of peace, the paradise Equestria had enjoyed, all thanks to the Tribunal slaughtering any and all threats to the nation. Countless vat grown, arcane powered troops making sure the Princesses only had to deal with making everything within the nation prefect. Sure a few small problems popped up from time to time, the Tribunal had not been perfect, but the true horrors had been kept at bay.

The 10th of Solarus, 5812 CE. Three months after we had defeated the Tribunal. The day he choose for us to die.

For the last three hundred years the Tribunal had been constantly keeping an army from entering Equestria. An army led by a single minded strategist with a hatred for all species not his own. An army displaced from time, millions of years away from home, with the singular goal of returning to their families. On that day twelve years ago, we made first contact with humankind.

They called themselves the Arc, and every single one of them was little more than a brain in a body made from steel and built for war. Each one of them absolutely loyal to the Admiral who commanded them, not by choice but through their technology. Technology which we could not even hope to counter in those early days.

We were lucky, the Admiral only had six battleships at his disposal, and they lacked the ability to produce more soldiers. The few victories we had in those early days mattered, they couldn't recover. In those early days those small victories told us we could beat them, but our moral shattered.

The Arc's weapons were terrible. It wasn't uncommon to find an entire city filled with corpses, no sign of a fight, and just the barest tinge of poisons in the air. Other cities vanished in a flash of fire which left ponies blind forever. Again we were lucky, the admiral took care to not kill too many of us or destroy indiscriminately. He needed our magic to return home.

We won in the end. Four years, eight million lives, a thousand heroes, a defector, and permanent damage to our nation's best defence. That's what it took to defeat them.

Had a member of the Arc, Operator 12, not broken free from her master's control and come to ur side, we would never have learned how to get past their shields and level the playing field. If Captain Flash Sentry had not sacrificed his life covering the Elements while they banished the Arc to the end of time, there wouldn't be an Equestria to day. Our nation survived on the barest thread of luck, by the sacrifice and skill of everypony who dared to try.

We survived, crushed and broken, but alive. Our mighty Kingdom reduced from a brilliant flame to a glowing coal. But we rebuilt, we worked hard to get back to where we were before. We managed to return to some of our former glory, most of the survivors have a good life. Cities are being rebuilt, the population is slowly bouncing back. But there is much which would need to happen to bring back our utopia.

I tell you this, so you know our history. So you have the barest idea of what my people have been through. Because those two back to back wars, they were not the true hell which awaited us.

There is an abundance of evil in this world, much of it long buried and forgotten. The last evil which attacked us was from a world long dead, ghosts of the past. The one which came after them and swept the entire world quite literally into the abyss, that was a relic of our era.

For decades we had thought our homeland, our world, and our very people were gone. Reduced to mere playthings for the Source of All Evil himself. Our last heroes were dead, our people broken and scattered, our magics useless or forgotten. What hope was there?

There was one, single, last spark of hope. A single spark which my friends and I had at last found. A single spark we were going to try our best to fan into a burning flame of freedom, and undo the last two decades of terror. We would reach into the past, create new heros, and set up a time paradox. The only question was, whom should we choose?

"Humans. We choose humans." he said.

I shook my head, "As advantageous in combat as they are, what hope do they have of peacefully interacting with us?"

"Not those humans." He chuckled. "We take two or three from long before they became the humans you know. Their twenty first century should do nicely."

"Why? It will take more power to move that far back in time than to simply grant somepony incredible powers. You know we will need brute force." she said.

He shook his head, "What good is a sledgehammer if you cannot wield it? We won't be able to talk to them directly after we begin. Our heros will need to work by our hints, to discover what needs to be done as we will be unable to tell them. We need clever, we need crazy, we need tenacious, we need compassion and rage in equal measure. We need humans."

"That's a good point." I said, giving all six of us a look to show them I agreed. "I say we get some of those humans."

"We don't have a way to prevent ponies from attacking them on sight!" she objected.

"Oh please, they don't all look like the Terminator! Ponies have never seen a proper human in the flesh. Everything will be fine." He scoffed. "Besides, their twenty first century was hundred of years before they developed that sort of technology."

"Alright… maybe that is our best option." She decided. "How how do we get them to start on our plan?"

"Oh that's easy." He laughed, "We find a few nerds, and we put them near the Emerald Hive. One look at those Changelings and they will do exactly what we need them too."

"Are you certain?" I asked.

He nodded. "Sometimes, people work like math. Trekkies, plus actual aliens in trouble, equals help given to aliens."

"Trekkies?" she asked in confusion.

"Think of them as a faction of humans."

He hadn't lied to anypony in three decades. There was no reason to assume he was now. So I nodded. "Okay… Let's get started."

 **~~~~~~o0o~~~~~~**  
 _Princess Celestia - 15th of Harvestide '09 - Noon_

* * *

I was used to letters I received being insulting tirades from hostile nation's leaders, self-righteous pontificating from a local noble, or a flattery filled letter from one of my loyal subjects. Those sorts of letters no longer irritated me. I barely even noticed them anymore, but the letter which I had just been given was an entirely different story.

The Emerald Hive's letter's were always irritating, and this one was no exception. The Emeralds are very different from other changelings, they are not aggressive or hostile, far from it. They sat within their hive and only fought things which attacked them first. They wouldn't even chase down fleeing foes or launch a retaliatory strike.

They are friendly enough, and willingly engage in diplomacy with Equestria and a few other nations which have not attacked them. If they would only cooperate and answer a few simple questions, I would have no quarrel at all with the reclusive and mysterious group of changelings who had made their home beneath Bozeman Hill in the badlands.

The majority of strange happenings around Bozeman Hill area were typically blamed on them. Once again ponies were coming to me in droves, demanding I put an end to the Emerald's nefarious schemes, or explain what 'the damn bugs are up to.' If only I had something to tell my subjects to assure them they were safe. But I simply had no clue what the Emeralds were actually doing.

The Emeralds owned their hill. It was their sovereign territory, a micro nation. I couldn't simply order them to explain themselves, they were not entirely mine to command. However, part of the spell used to banish the Hives requires all changelings to answer specific questions if asked. I added that into the spell so anypony could tell if a seemingly peaceful changeling was a threat or not. Somehow the Emeralds had found a loophole in that part of the spell, they could answer with the vaguest possible information.

The sort of vague information which filled the letter I held within my magic and read for a third time, hoping I had missed something, anything, which might give me a clue to their activities:

Princess Celestia,

I understand your concerns as to our activities. However, I must once again inform you we can not reveal any information other than we are performing scientific studies and tests within our sovereign territory. We hold no ill will towards Equestria, and wish to express our gratitude for freeing us from our species traditions. Without your intervention none of our accomplishments would have been possible.

As I respect you, and your nation I offer you this warning. Any military action taken against us will result in the immediate termination of all soldiers sent against our hive. Our past repulsion of invading forces speak for themselves as to the lethality of our defenses. While it would sadden me to order my people to fire upon yours we will defend ourselves and our hive as we always have regardless of who or what attacks us.

As it would seem we are causing you and your subjects stress I have elected to explain what I can. We are performing scientific studies and attempting to develop certain technologies to benefit our species and others. The exact details of which I am not free to disclose as we have agreed to follow a set of laws which are not of our own making. General Order One prevents us from discussing many matters with civilizations which have not reached a certain threshold of technological or social development. While there are situations in which we could explain ourselves without violating this Directive, we can't tell you what they are.

What I can tell you is this: Our Phoenix rests beneath Bozeman Hill, we seek to restore her from the ashes. When she is ready she will fly to the heavens, a signal to our brothers and sisters that we are ready to join them among the stars.

~ Captain Skriit Bartor

I groaned and rubbed my forehead with a hoof to ward off a building headache. For a people I had banished over nineteen centuries ago, the changeling Hives still managed to be an incredible nuisance from time to time. I don't regret banishing them, had Luna and I not used the Elements to banish their species to the four corners of the world they might have invaded en masse again. It wasn't exactly the changeling's fault they were such a menace back then.

I studied the changelings when I was younger and their species was more populous. If left to their own devices most changelings simply seek companionship, love, and are rather kind. I used the way individual changeling communities interact with each other as my template for pony society. But changelings also have their dark side.

Their Queens have an unusual power over them. It's more than the result of the joyfully, fervent loyalty changelings show to their leaders. Changeling Queens orders are always followed; I suppose it's an insect thing. Should a Queen give an order to her hive it is carried out immediately, to the letter, and with astonishing teamwork and precision. Which is why one wicked and evil-hearted leader can make any changeling hive a true terror.

The same incredible levels of teamwork, precision, and impossibly large numbers which allow them to construct entire buildings in mere hours is also a horrifying weapon. You can't outrun a swarm. If you damage it, the essence of what it is remains; the individuals within the swarm will regenerate and keep coming. Eventually even the strongest of ponies will weaken, their reserves will be gone and the swarm will wash them away like a wave. Changelings never relent.

The last major problem I had with changelings was nine years ago. The remnants of Sapphire Hive had launched their own invasion, led by the descendant of the last High Queen no less. Fortunately Chrysalis was nowhere near the tactical genius her mother and grandmother had been. She thought the swarm had no counters, no weaknesses, or flaws. There are plenty of ways to counter brute force.

Her invasion was over in an afternoon. It didn't even last long enough to push back my niece's wedding. Sometimes I wonder what happened to the forces under Chrysalis's command, we never found more than a hooffull of them scattered across Equestria. I hope their hive was not destroyed, no species should be punished for obeying its leaders.

Chrysalis was not the problem I was facing today, nor was it another changeling attack. If it was simply an attack, I would have no problem. I could simply call upon Twilight to once again save our kingdom. This time the problem was Emerald Hive, and they were seemingly peaceful as they always had been.

So all I had to try to discover what the Emeralds might be doing was a few direct statements by members of the Hive, wildly conflicting first hand accounts of ponies who had been to their Hive, rare stories from the odd survivors of assaults on their hill them over the centuries, and one entirely useless letter. Hardly enough to come to a proper conclusion.

I took a moment to reflect on what I knew of Emerald Hive's history. Perhaps, if I went over what was said in the letter through the context of their history and what little I knew of their culture, I could find the answer I sought.

The Emeralds' hive was formed just before the twelve changeling hives' banishment. High Queen Polygyne had taken an entire hive with her in her madness induced invasion of Equestria. The other Queens knew the hive was doomed, and due to a superstition involving the number eleven, they formed the Emerald Hive from the outcasts and weaklings of all the other hives. As a result the Emeralds are smaller, weaker, slower, and less magically powerful than other changelings. Furthermore, if the reports were accurate they couldn't produce members of the Soldier caste, meaning they did not have any purpose built warriors to assist them. Yet they held onto that one hill despite their weakness.

I had to admire them for that. The Emeralds clearly had intellect on their side, but when a group of creatures who shouldn't be able to hold onto territory keep managing to hold it, lived in near total isolation, and exhibited cult-like behavior ponies will grow to fear them. Furthermore for everyone Equestria has me for a leader, and I won't lead my nation to war on suspicions of danger. No matter how bizarre or threatening a culture might appear to us, violence must be a last resort.

The Emeralds certainly are bizarre. Other hives use their gemstone's shape and color as their flag, the Emeralds fly a blue flag featuring a silver asymmetrical arrowhead with rounded points. Other hives seek to gain territory and enjoy obtaining wealth, the Emeralds couldn't care less about trade aside from raw resources and only seemed interested in Bozeman Hill. Other hives proudly proclaim their loyalty to their Queen, the Emeralds haven't even explained their basic command structure to me.

The few diplomatic visits the Emeralds have payed Canterlot over the years had shown me that their culture is entirely different from the Changeling norm. The Emeralds wore clothing, a simple sash of red, gold, blue, or green which is used to display a few small pins. It was definitely some sort of uniform, but whatever the brass pips and colors meant was not something the Emeralds were willing to discuss. The most they would say was, "We found new purpose beneath Bozeman Hill. We no longer value material wealth, we seek only to better ourselves."

The popular opinion was that the Emeralds has discovered an ancient magical artifact and formed a cult to an ancient god. I was inclined to believe that myself. There was little else to conclude, the uniforms, the secrecy, the unknown power they possessed, the countless reports of mysterious lights and sounds around their hive, and the eerily beautiful, haunting, alien music played daily at sunrise practically spelled everything out. If they had formed a cult, I needed to know exactly what they believed and might do as military action might be needed.

Unfortunately, this was not something a normal spy could find out for me. Not because of any real danger, but because of how insanely secure their hive is: a single entrance camouflaged into the hill and with but a single guarded approach. There was simply no way to safely get a spy into the hive, unless they were to walk right in the front door. While the Emeralds happily allow ponies to visit their hive, only those who allow a binding spell to be placed upon them may which prevents them from discussing what they saw may enter the subterranean portions.

Nonetheless, I had a plan to get that intelligence. I wrote a letter, which informed Emerald Hive in no uncertain terms that unless they disclosed exactly what they were doing I would be forced to undertake military action at the request of my subjects. That letter was given to a very special messenger, and sent to their hive as quickly as could be. A spy who mere minutes ago had handed me the letter I still held in my magic.

I groaned again, "How do you write three hundred words and say nothing?"

I set the letter down on my desk with an angry huff. At least I finally had the name and rank of the Emerald's leader. Unfortunately the rank of Captain backed up the notion of a growing and well established military.

I turned my head to look at the "pony" who had been my messenger and spy. To the untrained eye he was a simple, gray furred, black maned earth pony. A very common, bit-a-dozen sort of pony who would vanish into a crowd without even trying. Nothing could be further from the truth. "You haven't mentioned if our plan worked. Did their sealing spell effect you?"

"Oh Tia, you know full well it didn't. You wouldn't have asked me to be your delivery boy if you thought it could." The gray and black pony's body warped and contorted as Discord returned to his proper shape. Plucking a small pink ball from thin air he began to toss it back and forth between his talon and paw, "But I won't tell you what you want to know."

"What?" I asked incredulously, "You made me a promise Discord!"

He gave me a sagely smug, playful nod. "I did, but what do you do when one promise conflicts with another? Oh no no, not their silly little 'no talking' spell." Discord flicked his talon, the ball transforming into a replica of the Emerald Hive's logo. "I thought this little emblem was a coincidence, there are only so many symbols one can invent after all. I must admit it's a rather unlikely set of circumstances but this symbol belongs to a group I am rather well acquainted with."

"What do you mean? Are they dangerous?" I asked, pleading with my tone for an answer, any answer. I had to have something to tell my subjects. Anything.

Discord snorted, "They are very dangerous, in their own way. Or were rather. You needn't worry your little head though, they were never aggressive. Just peaceful explorers, thrill seekers really. I made a promise to some very good friends so very long ago not to give information on them out to other species and civilizations."

"They don't exist anymore?" I asked, my eyes narrowing in curiosity.

"No. They never existed in this universe, and their own has long since ended." Discord held up a talon, interrupting me as I opened my mouth to ask why he, of all people, would respect a promise made to someone long dead, "But that doesn't mean I never made the promise, so I will only tell you what I can without breaking it. Those particular changelings won't harm anyone. They believe in the philosophies of the people they are imitating more than the originals did.

"I have no clue how or why but they have almost everything they need to explore this world just as their idols did theirs, and it's plain to see that's exactly what they want to do. They are harmless Celestia, though they will cause some delightful chaos down the road. I look forward to watching it." Discord finished.

I took a deep breath. I could feel the anger building on my face, took a deep breath, let it all out with a long sigh and asked, "Okay. What do I tell my little ponies then?"

"Tell them not to worry. The Emeralds are just a bunch of eggheads doing various scientific experiments and don't want to harm anypony. If they are still concerned... Well don't worry about that. A little bird tells me the Emeralds' cat will be out of the bag soon enough." Discord smiled, raising his paw preparing to vanish with a snap his fingers.

"What makes you say that?" I blurted before he could vanish.

"I'm sure you remember Starswirl's little hiccup while working with time magic? Let's just say that he's enabled a handful of people to boldly go where no man has gone before." Discord winked, waved, then snapped his fingers, and vanished, leaving me even more confused than before. Just like he always did, leaving more questions than answers.


	2. Chapter One

**~~~~~~o0o~~~~~~**

 _Ad'ika's Personal Log: 12th of Harvestide '09 EoH - Morning_

What? Why do I have to speak out loud? Oh cool! Everything I say is appear- Heh, sorry! I'll just get started then.

My name is Ad'ika. I haven't earned a second name yet, but at least I have something to be called aside from 7142.85. I'm a Scout for the Emerald Hive, a group of changelings living in the bunker beneath Bozeman Hill in Equestria's Badlands. Being a Scout is more than just my job, it's my caste. The biological sort of caste, not like a social caste. I'm smaller, quicker, have dragonfly-like instead of wasp-like wings, and am way better at shapeshifting than others of my kind.

But scouting is also my job. Mostly because my natural talents make me really good at it. We Emeralds have done our best to push past the social structure our biology pushes us into but that's actually pretty damn hard. After all while every changeling can flawlessly impersonate a pony, I can make up my own individual pony forms to use. You can't figure out somepony is an impostor if they aren't an importer!

There's more than just my shapechanging ability, if that's all that made a Scout unique a Worker could do my job with enough training. What no worker can ever do is connect to our hive's link from anywhere on the planet, something vital for me to do my assigned job. It's a job that every changeling in the Hive needs done, I am honored to help but I also would like time to do the things I am interested in. But the hive comes first. Captain Skriit wants me to infiltrate Appleloosa, so I live in Appleloosa.

You might be wondering what job would require an adept shapeshifter who can remotely send information via telepathy back to base and involves infiltration. You probably think I'm a special agent or covert operative for a military or law enforcement agency, or maybe a terrorist. I'm actually more along the lines of a farmhand.

Changelings don't eat what most species do. We need water like everything else, and we can eat a little bit of normal foods, but we actually eat emotions. Specifically positive emotions, usually love as it has the most energy and thus the highest nutritional content. It's pretty hard to be a species of emotavores, we can't exactly plant a row of squee so no agriculture for us. Instead, we have three options: Livestock; hunting; and assimilation.

The live stock option involves kidnapping sentient creatures and keeping them in a hive as a food supply. It's kinda flawed because that makes most things mad, so they don't produce any positive emotions, so we don't get any food. Sure there are exceptions, we could take young and raise them. My hive hates doing that though, so we only take abandoned young.

Hunting works pretty well. Most of my job involves informing the Hive to send harvesters when emotions are running highest. There is some risk to an individual we extract energy from, but if you're careful you can get all the energy you can without an individual noticing. What? You thought we killed creatures we feed on? That would be like cutting down an apple tree to get apples. Any changeling who has been taught to hunt right leaves enough energy for the subject to remain in a positive mood, and is careful enough to give them a slight headache at the worst.

Sometimes I get to pull off assimilation. Our species is genetically compatible with ponies as well as a select few other species, meaning we can breed with them. Our mages found a way to make an adult into the same sort of hybrid a half-changeling child is. We don't do it for just anyone, the risk is too high. But if we ever find an individual who feels cast out of society, who needs company, a family, we make them a deal. We can feed on them, and they get our shape changing powers.

Which is why the Captain had me stationed in Appleloosa. The tiny pony frontier town was a few weeks journey away from our hive and a place where many outcast ponies wound up. Every few months a good candidate for assimilation would show up and I would see about getting them interested in our offer. Also, the local ponies loved their festivals so I could keep the Hive apprised of when to gather food from the town.

I've been living here for a few years now, four of the seven years my orders have me posted here for. I stuck around town for a few weeks in a half dozen different shapes to find a niche I could fit into. My job is easiest when ponies are friendly to me, sadly that means I can't just walk in as my normal buggy self. Changelings have a rightfully earned bad reputation as dangerous. We Emeralds are different, we are no longer conquerors, we have changed, but other hives haven't, and ponies are easily spooked.

So everypony in town knew me as Star Burst, a dark gray furred pegasus mare with a dark blue mane and tail featuring a single gold highlight. I often wore my mane in a ponytail and always had on a simple black homburg with a white band. A hat is sort of required by local pony culture. When I was first infiltrating Appaloosa I noticed they always needed more construction done, so I whipped up a hammer and saw cutiemark and have been working as a carpenter ever since.

I have to admit that I do cheat at my 'job'. Pony culture enjoys tradition, they have some higher technology but usually do things the old fashioned way. Changelings are usually rather primitive. Most hives believe we are superior life forms and that nature is good enough. We Emeralds are different, we suck. Physically I mean, smaller, weaker, we're wimps. We turned to technology to survive, and after an incredible stroke of luck have some very nice pieces of technology at our disposal.

So whenever I could get away with it, instead of taking a saw in hoof and cutting a board, I'll break out the old omni-tool, whip up a hardlight mono filament blade and just cut the board to shape. I feel a little bad about that though. I've started to drive other carpenters out of business but I can't just stop using my tech because now I have a reputation for being incredibly good. Using pony tools I would be pretty bad.

To be fair, we didn't invent most of our technology. We found it, fixed it up, and can reproduce it, but it's not ours. That's why Bozeman Hill's so important to my hive, our survival depends on the banged up wreck we found under it and the tech therein we have yet to understand. Which is why Applelooza is so important for our Hive, it's close to home, our best food supply. The only problem was we couldn't harvest enough from it, there's more than enough ponies living there to feed our hive but the small population means we can't send very many harvesters at once without someone noticing what's happening.

So my sisters are always a little hungry, running on the minimum most of the time. I'm pretty lucky, enough ponies are grateful for my work that I get all the food I need. Well, I get enough love. I have to feed my pony body too, that's the price of staying shapeshifted for long periods. You need to feed the real you and your chosen form. Since the construction industry in town was booming I had to set my prices pretty low. It feels very weird to be full and also hungry at the same time.

My badge chirped, shaking me out of my thoughts. I quickly took off my hat and tapped the badge hidden inside, indicating I was free to speak over the hivelink. Ensign Ad'ika reporting as ordered, I telepathically sent, feeling my link connect to the Hive Mind and rout through to... Captain Skriit?

Everyling's 'voice' comes through a link perfectly clear, but Skriit's voice always sounded extra crisp, authoritative, and iron clad. Odd traits for a male's voice to have. It made him sound extra "commandy". Ensign, this is your Captain speaking. Our sensors are showing a magical disturbance roughly three kilometers southeast of your position. We can't get a clear look at it from here. It should be large enough for you to see from your post. We need you to clarify what sort of disturbance it is. It appears to be necromancy but we need to be sure before taking any action.

Shit... Realizing I sent that through the link I eeped out loud. I mean aye sir! Right away!

I turned around, tugged open the window and slipped outside, wings snapping open and flapping as I emerged out the second story of my workshop and landed on the roof. Looking now sir... I'm not seeing- wait I can see something that looks slightly like a sandstorm. I can't see much with a pegasus's eyes.

This could be vital to the security of Applelooza. Return to your true form if necessary Ensign, the Captain ordered.

I frowned in concern at the order. Sir, I have a very good cover here and am on the roof of a building. I could easily-

We can reinsert you later if necessary. We need that intelligence right now Ensign.

Aye sir, I sighed then closed my eyes, and focused on my true form.

Some 'lings say shape changing feels weird, like when you're freshly molted and someling else rubs your back. I've never felt that way. It's warm, relaxing, and just a little fun. It's like a bucket of warm honey flows across you whisking your old shape away and leaving behind something new.

The rows of wooden buildings and shifting desert sands melted away as my eyes returned to normal. Everything quickly came back into view, the hundreds of vibrant colors gone, everything shades of purple, dark blue, or black to my eyes.

I scanned the horizon, the shifting vortex of sand was much easier to spot now. Crackling energy and flashes of light bloomed within the cloud of sand, I would never have seen them as a pegasus but the UV all of that electricity was putting off glowed like a miniature sun to changeling eyes. I can see it now sir, it's definitely magical in nature. I'm inspecting the thaumaturgic currents now.

There was no reply as I closed my eyes to prevent the headache inducing flash which came with changing what part of the EM spectrum I was seeing. When I opened my eyes again everything was pitch black with a few scattered tiny motes of white light shimmering. The tiny dots were ponies, their passive magic fields the only thing I could see. Aside from the terrifying arcane maelstrom in the distance!

Captain, the anomaly's thaumaturgic current is forming a ring vortex shape with the opening aligned vertically. I concentrated for a moment, the lenses of my eyes warped, magnifying the organized chaos of white bolts of energy in my vision, hidden details instantly revealing themselves. I'm not a Royal, but this appears to be a version of a gate spell, sir. There are many smaller lines of current within the main vortex circling the center like a band and keeping it stable. I can also see small motes of energy drifting into the center of the vortex just above the ground.

There was silence for a split second then I saw bright flash of white, the vortex spun down, slowly decaying into nothing. Captain, the anomaly is collapsing! It... I think it's a gate. I can see a bright point of energy in the center, but it's getting dimmer. It's just like a teleport-

A shrill shriek pierced my ears. "Changeling!"

"Call the guard!" somepony in the street screamed.

Shit! I've been spotted! I cursed. Snapping my wings open and switching to the visible spectrum. Only an idiot flies while looking at spell energy.

Acknowledged, Ensign. Evade capture and see if you can't find what came through the gate. We will remain on Yellow Alert until you check in. Good luck. Captain Skritt ordered with a slight touch of concern for me in his voice.

Flashes of white clouded my vision as my eyes adjusted for normal light. I winced, waiting until I could see properly was costing me precious moments. The first thing I saw clearly was a spear thud into the roof a hair's breadth from my left arm. I chirped in alarm, jumped up, snapping my wings open to take of. A blaze of golden light streaked over my left shoulder.

I dropped and rolled, the metallic scent of spellbolts filling the air as more golden rays sliced through the air above me. I couldn't take off, and in seconds pegasus guards would be on the roof. I called upon my own magic, focused my energy, sweeping a low powered beam of magic around me. With a crack of broken wood I fell through the roof, landing on the circle I had cut out and scrabbling to my hooves in an instant.

My saddlebags and omnitool lay on my workbench, I couldn't leave them behind. Prime Directive, keep tech out of pony hooves and all that. A quick pulse of telekinesis and my bags were loaded and sitting on my back. Ensign Ad'ika to Phoenix Recovery Crew. I am abandoning my post. I do not have time to see if I have all of my equipment.

Roger Ensign, recovery teams will be dispatched, someling's voice answered.

The door to my room exploded inwards as two earth pony guards rushed in. Applelooza's guards weren't the polished pretty boys of Canterlot. Their armor was well worn, covered their vital areas, and they knew how to use their spears to do more than bar a door.

"There it is, kill it!" one of the guards shouted.

"It? I'm female!" I shouted in mock anger before firing a spellbolt over their heads. In the instant the bolt bought me, I jumped backwards landing on the sill of the already open window. "If it's any consolation I had a hard time with pony genders myself!"

I tipped backwards falling out of the window. A quick buzz from my wings and I landed safely on the ground. The unicorn would be keeping an eye on the sky still. Within seconds two pegasi landed in front of me, the sound of hooves on dirt from behind indicated I was surrounded.

The guard to my left took a step forward, green eyes narrowed. "Any last words bug?" he asked with a menacing grin on his lips.

"Yeah, pew!" I winked and threw a single low powered stunbolt.

The bolt streaked towards the guard, his partner kicked him out of the way. Hooves scraped dirt as the pony behind me jumped to tackle me. I dropped, belly to the sand, and flapped my wings backwards hard as I could. A pink pegasus guard soared over me as I zipped backwards under her. She slammed into her companions, I scrambled to my hooves, jumped, twisted, landed on the wall, gripped the boards and ran across it passing over the pile of tangled guards with a "'scuse me, pardon me, coming through!"

In my experience angry ponies are less tactical ponies. With thirty Tatzlwurm attack hardened guards in town I would every edge I could get.

I jumped off the wall, twisted, and hit the ground running. I had to get out of the back roads of town. A year ago this would have been simple, but the gold rush had octupled the number of buildings in town. I would have to navigate the haphazard back alleys by myself.

I turned right and took off, flying a few feet above the ground to prevent that unicorn from simply shooting me out of the sky. Hooves thundered behind me. I rolled, twisting my wings to keep moving forward as I spun around to look behind me. The three pegasi had gotten untangled quickly, and their unicorn friend had joined them. The two earth ponies were quickly bringing up the rear, one of them suddenly stopped and leveled a crossbow.

The bolt flew towards me with a sharp crack. I felt a jolt of pain as the bolt bounced off my exoskeleton. Sure, you need armor piercing tips to get through changeling's armor, but it still feels like a really hard punch.

I rolled with the hit, wings brushing against a wall as I twisted in the air nearly knocking me out of the air. A second bolt buried itself in the wall next to my head. I pushed with all my might, wings buzzing like a saw as I climbed above the rooftops. Focusing as hard as I could on not hitting anypony I threw a flurry of spellbolts towards the charging guards.

The unicorn threw up a shield spell, protecting herself and the earth ponies behind her. The pegasi took to the air, the pink one taking a bolt to the wing, slamming to the ground as my spell punched a hole through her feathers.

"Ah! Luna's mane!" she screamed.

I winced. I didn't think I had thrown lethal spells.

"I'll squash it for you, Shield!" a bright blue pegasus shouted, racing towards me, hooves outstretched, face expressing more hate than I was comfortable with.

Any given pegasus is way faster than a changeling. I couldn't outrun him. He knew this, I could see the smug expression on his face as he closed the distance. I let him get within a body length of me then jinked left.

"Olé!" I cried as the pegasus shot past me like a rocket. Nothing with bird wings out-maneuvers a bug.

The pegasus quickly pulled an Immelman turn, looping back to take a second shot. He put on an extra burst of speed, starting to trail red white and blue as he came in. His buddies shot up towards me as he came down.

I counted the seconds till the pegasi would be ontop of me. "Three... two... one... and snap roll!"

I rolled to the left in a corkscrew pattern, intentionally stalling and losing a good chunk of my speed. The two pegasi behind me overshot forcing their friend to pull up and move around them. I couldn't help but stick my tongue out at him as he shot by.

As I turned and flattened out my flight path to try and make a break for the desert I noticed the blue pegasus grab a small cloud, then flip into a perfectly executed pitch back loop, and fire a lightning bolt. The bolt sizzled through the air, passing close enough to blind me for a second.

"Ah! Clever dick!" I cursed, as I barely blinked my vision clear in time for a second bolt to go crackling past me. The second of blindness sent me off course, forcing me to swerve around a chimney.

I rolled onto my right side, twisting the first part of sort of sideways Cuban eight loop. The second I was facing back the way I came I fired off a barrage of small bolts, the green magic sizzling through the air. Blue pain in my ass whipped his cloud up like a shield, my spells diffusing as they hit the lightning charged cloud. With a silent curse I whipped back around, finishing the loop and returning to my original flight path.

Wishing I had taken the advanced air combat classes instead of just basic training, I poured on all the speed I could. If I got far enough from Applelooza the guards should break off. Standard anti-changeling policies said not to chase us too far, they figured we would lead them into groups of waiting allies. Can't call it racist when it's true.

The next ten minutes were a blur of near misses, more than a few painful hits, a few kilohugs of magic burnt throwing spells over my shoulder, and more obscenities than I knew ponies had invented. We quickly entered the middle of the desert, nothing but sand, rock, and desert scrub as far as the eye could see. The sweltering heat was playing hell with my wings. Ling's and hot days do not make for good flying partners, my wings were throbbing.

I would have to do my best to shake them on hoof. I flared my wings and twisted in the air to put my belly forewords, killing my speed instantly. Ignoring the pain in my shoulders I dropped just in time for the two pegasi to shoot past me, a quick buzz of my wing setting me safely on the ground on a fairly steep hillside.

Those guards must have been pretty tired themselves, they banked, turned and landed atop the hill. The green one panting, "Right... pincer move. I got left, you take right."

"Ok," her partner agreed, "Charge!"

The two began to gallop down the hill towards me, I spun on my hooves to sprint down the hill only for my jaw to drop in shock. Standing twenty feet away was a bipedal, ape-like creature. It stood almost two heads taller than a pony, had long blond hair only on its head, and was dressed from head to toe in a black and red uniform. A uniform I recognized. A uniform any Emerald 'ling would recognize instantly.

My eyes widened in shock, my jaw dropped, wings opening in a mixture of surprise, joy, and glee. Doing my best to remember to speak in English I shouted, "Help! They are going to kill me for racial reasons!"

As impossible as a Starfleet security officer standing there was, I remembered she would be bound by the Prime Directive and added, "Starfleet! Federation! Earth! Humans! The Prime Directive is suspended if we know about you guys right?"

The human woman looked at me with impossible amounts of shock and surprise and exclaimed, "What the actual fuck?"

 **~~~~~~o0o~~~~~~**

 _Tessarah Munro's Personal Log: Stardate 93210.3_

The unbelievable just happened. My friends and I have found ourselves stranded on a strange world. There is alien life here both benign and hostile. We are unarmed and have pretty much just an RV and the stuff we brought with us to a con. Naturally this is so unfathomably awesome that I feel the need to start keeping a proper log of everything. No that isn't sarcasm.

I don't know how these are supposed to begin, so I guess I'll summarize who my friends and I are, how we got here, and just let it flow like I'm writing a novel from there. Maybe one day I'll somehow get to put this on the internet and someone will read it. Until that happens this will be a good way to organize my thoughts and have a record for us to check back on later in case we need something. I'll probably get the others to record a few entries too.

My name's Tess. I'm a very introverted girl. Social events burn me out quicker than anyone can ever predict. The old saying 'Hell is other people' applies to me very well. Not in the way pop culture has twisted it, but in the original 'the observations and judgments of others upon my person is the worst form of torture I can be subjected to' the author meant by his little turn of phrase. Which is why it would shock most people who knew me to see me all smiles and sunshine after leaving Star Trek Las Vegas 2015.

If I had been stuck in a Walmart for a weekend, I would be ready to die. A dinner party? Fire me into the sun please. A microsecond talking to my dad? Please orbital strike my position. A Trek convention? Sorry I can't hear you over discussing how we might improve the primary pattern buffers in the auxiliary transporter systems.

Trekkies are one of the few types of people who I feel safe around. It's simple, they are humans, with human problems, but they are organized into a community who longs for a world free of all the bullshit ours is choked with. The shining future of Star Trek has no money, no war, no hunger, no disease. The show is a message, it says, 'Yeah life sucks ass now, but if we get our shit together it could be awesome. We have the power to become better than this.'

That message is why the con has fans who have been fans for half a decade. Hell Trek cons are as close as I get to attending church. Instead of talking about how we are all dirty sinners it's talking about cool sci-fi stuff, and more often than not talking with real scientists about new ideas and inventions. The cellphone exists because a guy was inspired by Star Trek. Just saying.

That would still be draining to me if it weren't for one other thing. Most Trekkies embrace the philosophies of the show as a whole. You don't see many people in the fandom who discriminate, and those that do get shunned. You are accepted, even if you are a girl like me.

What is a girl like me? A walking talking contradiction of societal opinions that's what. I'm a six foot tall, slender, platinum blond, white girl with a love of revealing clothing and lovely g cups that I'm proud to say are the product of science. I have been described as a 'whore' by strangers and family members alike, that's technically true I guess.

I'm not a booth babe. Yeah I'm ok looking, dress skimpily most of the time, and yes I have 'fake' tits, but I am also a nerd. How much of a nerd? I don't have implants, I have artificially induced growth of natural tissues thanks to participating in a clinical trial for the twenty first century's answer to silicone. I did it so I could say I'm the result of a mad science experiment to create a better woman. Downside is the only superpower I got was more chest fat. I would have preferred wings, or a big fluffy squirrel tail, or anything non-human but well, what can you do?

I also don't act like some bimbo. I might as well be a robot when around most people but at home or with close friends I'm a fun loving, twitchy ball of nerdy nerves. The sort of person who made her best friend and girlfriend's uniforms for the con this year using the same materials as the original prop guys. The sort who spent her hard-earned cash to make sure her own uniform was screen accurate and every accessory functional.

Kaily is a bigger nerd than I though. Sure, I loved the show and the ideas in it, but she knew the real life physics behind NASA's warp drive in progress. That's a whole other level. She is someone who would be helping build that shiny golden future for humanity, if she had gotten to finish college. Which is why I started dating her, well that and her cute bouncy rump.

She's short, sexily curvy, has dark red hair, mocha colored skin, and an epic henna tattoo that reaches every single part of her. The only problem with her looks is she's human, she could use retractable claws, or scales, or some other cool xenobiology. Then again I am of the opinion that everyone could use something like that. The human shape is just... boring.

Fortunately Kaily's personality is beautiful enough to make up for that flaw. She's cheerful, brilliant, kind, thoughtful, and neurotic enough for me to have a role she needs very much. I'm the one who pulls her out of the pit of despair, she's the one who gives me a reason to live.

The other person who made my life worth living was Ed. We're not romantically involved or anything, I don't do guys. Though he is cute. He looks a little like Robert Downey Jr did in the 90's, only Portuguese, a little shorter, and with bright green eyes. The sort of guy who looks like he should be harassing me to go out with him, or saying 'I'm too pretty to be a lesbian.'

Ed's not like that. He's been my best friend for years, ever since we both were in Amtgard as preteens. He's not a Trekkie per-say, more of a fan of sci-fi in general. He's happy to put on a uniform and shoot the shit with people about Trek stuff, but he loves everything too much to dedicate himself to any one fandom.

His RV was a good example of that. The outside was custom built to look like a Federation vehicle of some sort, complete with a Fleet logo on each side and the name USS Sagan RV-42 painted on the hood. The inside looked like the interior of the Normandy SR-2 from Mass Effect. But the actual internals, well... Ed shows his love for sci-fi by replicating sci-fi gizmos. The Sagan was filled with cool functional gizmos, hell the damn thing was electric and powered by solar cells on the roof but still able to go five hundred miles a day on or off road.

Which is why it confused me when Ed announced, "I'm pulling into the Chevron."

"Huh? Why?" I asked, looking up from my laptop toward the driver's compartment.

"I want something to eat," He replied, turning the RV off the road.

"But we have snacks in the fridge," I pointed out.

"Yep." Ed pulled the RV into an out of the way spot in the parking lot and killed the engine. "You two want anything?"

Kaily shook her head. "I'm good." She winked at me, standing up as Ed unbuckled and stepped into the living area. The second Ed was looking she snapped into a salute, announcing, "Captain on deck!"

Ed sighed, straightened his uniform's red and black jacket, gave her a glare of doom and shot back, "Don't make me space you Lieutenant."

He crossed to the RV's door and gave us a nod. "I won't be long. Sure you don't want anything?"

I shook my head. "Nah, I'm good."

"Kay." Ed ducked out, grabbing a large camping backpack as he left the RV. Maybe he wanted to do some grocery shopping before going back home. He was pretty lazy like that.

"So... are you going to keep your hair like that?" Kaily asked, looking critically at the bun I had tied my hair into.

"Unlike you, I respect the uniform," I teased, clicking away at my text game, "I'll go back to the usual ponytail once were home."

"So you respect the uniform enough to put your hair in an up-do, but not enough to not play video games in it?"

"I'm off duty. I'm also in a security uniform. We both know that means I just sit in a hole until something goes wrong then get my ass kicked," I giggled.

She nodded. "That's a fair point actually. Did you have a good time?"

"Yep! How about you? Find any fellow eggheads?" I teased before growling, "Ugh... stupid merchant... I'm trying to find new biomes. Stop popping up every time I hit explore!"

"I did actually!" Kaily grinned. "I found a guy who had some pretty interesting ideas on how to adapt that spider silk sub dermal armor so you can grow it in one piece instead of needing to make the lattice. Which means you could grow it in large enough pieces to perform enough grafts to make it a full skin replacement without bankrupting yourself."

"Sounds like you had fun. I should have made you a medical uniform instead of an engineering one."

"There really isn't much of a difference these days. Still prefer machines though, at least when they break it's easy to figure out why." Kaily plopped down on the couch across from me with a sigh. "Well... back to the slog through uneducated dolts for us."

I sighed and looked up from my laptop, I had to nip her depression in the bud or she would be like this all week. "Yeah... At least we live close enough to drive out there every year though. Besides, local Fleet meetups are always fun and Jake said he had a new campaign figured out so we have a new game to look forewords to!"

"We do?" Kaily asked, perking up for an instant before frowning, "Are you going to run another character like Mil'in?"

I giggled and shook my head. "We both know there is no way in hell he'd let me do that again." Playing that particular character was not easy for me to do. I had to be way too open with people about myself. I'm glad they think I was just in character for most of what I had Mil'in do, especially the random hugs from behind.

"My point is we have some things to look forewords to... I know that working at a gas station sucks but we have fun too, right?"

She sighed, nodding after a few seconds. "Yeah... Could use more excitement or fulfillment though."

"Totally," I agreed in an equally down tone, "But you gotta make do. People bitch at you forever if you try and check out early. I'm sure we will get the chance to make something of ourselves eventually, hon."

She nodded. "Yeah maybe. Who knows, maybe I'll get a job offer from a start up somewhere and we can get out of here."

"It would be nice to go somewhere else," I commented before turning my attention back to attempting to hit 'explore' enough times to unlock the desert biome, "It would also be nice if my browser cleaner didn't wipe my saves..."


	3. Chapter Two

_**~~~~~o0o~~~~~**_

 _Captain's Log: Stardate_ _Um, August._ _69072.8_

With Lieutenant Munroe's assistance, I have discovered how to formulate a stardate correctly. This new discovery is only vaguely interesting as all of the Sagan's clocks utilize American military time and therefore do not display a Stardate... meaning I would have to perform math each time I wanted to put a date into the log. To hell with that, it's 1432 hours on August 10th.

No Tess, my ship, my rules. Official log entries get a normal date so I know when it is without doing algebra. Yes, I know that your segments are personal logs, but eventually you will have to make a security log and since no one is going to read these besides us I want to know when anything important happened!

My name is Ed, though for the foreseeable future I am going to have to get used to being called Captain Tylor. As an anime fan, this makes me cringe. I hope I captain the Sagan better than Captain Tylor captained the Soyokaze. Fortunately, that shouldn't be too hard.

I had pulled the Sagan into a Chevron station to load up on groceries for the upcoming week. The Sagan is a new thing for me still, my last car ate gas at roughly the same rate as a four year old eats fruit loops. As such I am used to getting as much done in one trip as possible.

The Sagan's solar powered electric motor was a little something Kaily and I whipped up to help my wallet out. The old RV used to be my dad's, and when he died last year it became mine. She's a nice thing to remember him by and he would be thrilled with the gadgets the two of us built into her. He always wanted a Bond car, but I am sure he would have been happy with a Rustbucket or Eagle Five.

The Chevron didn't have much in the way of meal-grade food, but that was okay I survive mostly on a diet of whatever is in arm's reach. I was in the middle of randomly grabbing packaged food when a voice started talking to me.

"Ah there you are! Do you have any idea how hard it was to get here?" It was a man's voice, one I knew very well.

"John de Lancie?" I asked incredulously. As I turned around and saw a tall, gangly, black suited, pale faced white guy in sunglasses I felt the need to instantly apologize, "Ah- Sorry, I'm guessing you get that a lot."

The creepy dude nodded. "Yes he does sound like me, doesn't he? Let's get your ship on course, I can't stay here forever and you have somewhere to be Mr. Tylor."

He snapped his fingers, pulling a small pin seemingly from thin air. I do magic tricks, and that was one of the best sleight of hands I had ever seen. No flick of the wrist to dislodge something from the sleeve, no twist of the fingers to slide something into the palm, just snap and there it was.

The pin was pretty nice too. It was a silver eight pointed star with the vertical and horizontal points three times as long as the diagonal points and connected to a gold ring which made the pin into a circle.

"Er- Do I know you?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No. But trust me, you want this. Call it a door prize." He held the pin out to me, sunglasses slipping down his nose to reveal red eyes with yellow where the white should be.

That's when it clicked, I had been the first person to enter the Con this year. There must have been a prize. "Oh! Sorry, your Thin Man costume threw me off. You didn't have to track me down just to deliver a door prize. I mean, thanks, but that's seriously creepy man."

He smiled. "Oh but I do. I know it doesn't go with your uniform, but I would recommend pinning that to your collar so you don't lose it. It's rather priceless."

I took the pin, it felt rather heavy. "Is this real silver?"

"No it's platinum, and the only one of its kind remaining. I am dead serious, do not lose it. You will find it to be valuable in more ways then one."

"Woah! Now I get why you tracked me down. I wouldn't trust this in the mail either." I bent my head down to pin the pin to my collar.

Just as I fastened it on I heard a finger snap, there was a camera-like flash, and the smell of burnt ozone. I looked up to see if someone had taken my picture and the guy was gone. Not gone as in, across the store leaving, as in had never been there gone.

To reiterate, a dude who looked like a Thin Man from X-Com gave me a badge out of nowhere then vanished into thin air. This was how every single conspiracy theory involving the MIB started. For a moment I thought about throwing the pin across the store and running, but then I realized that could easily screw me over later. It would be best to lock the thing in my safe at home and never think about it again unless I needed it to prove to the Feds I had been contacted or something. Or that guy was just an asshole and this really was a door prize.

Thoroughly creeped out, I quickly paid for the snacks I had grabbed and jogged back to the Sagan with the X-Files theme playing rather loudly in my head.

Kaily greeted me the second I pulled the door open. "Hey. You didn't get much." Then her eyes spotted the pin. "Woah! That's a really cool pin, do they have any more?"

"No idea," I answered, "We should get out of here before Sectoids spawn or something."

She gave me a confused look. Tess looked up from her laptop with equal confusion and asked, "Er-what?"

"Creepy dude gave me the pin. Said it was a door prize. He could be telling the truth, I was the first one at the con this year but he seriously creeped me out by vanishing into thin air so we are going to get moving," I answered.

I quickly tossed my grocery bags onto the couch and slipped back into the driver's seat. As I slipped the key into the ignition Tess pointed out, "You're letting your imagination run away with you again."

"He was dressed like a Thin Man from X-Com." I turned the key, the Sagan's motors quietly humming to life.

"Yeah, and Vidcon opens in three hours," Kaily pointed out, "They scheduled it right after Trek this year."

"I know. Still creepy." I stepped on the gas and started heading for the road. Home was sounding great right now.

Tess giggled, "I think Ed stole my schizophrenia. You can keep it if you want to."

Kaily laughed at her joke. I would have if I wasn't busy being creeped out. I honestly didn't know why he had been so creepy. Somehow that guy was still making me feel uneasy, and the entirely traffic free highway didn't help either. "You know, maybe I did. Do you get full body tingly dread when it hits you?"

"Yeah, you can. But normally you actually see things instead of being vaguely creeped out. Trust me, if you had just developed schizophrenia we would know. Kaily is great at telling when I'm out of it, and the docs made me memorize the signs. You're fine. Some dude just rubbed you the wrong way," Tess said in an informative and polite tone.

Then she gasped and asked, "Hold on, are you creeped out because you thought he was cute? That would be adorable!"

I slammed my head into the steering wheel. "Not everyone is gay, Tess."

"Ha! Called it!" She teased.

I turned to look over my shoulder at her. "For the record-"

"Holy shit!" Kaily shouted, Her jaw dropping as she pointed out the windshield.

"What?" I turned my head to look back at the road. A huge wall of swirling sand covered the entire road, having apparently come right the fuck out of nowhere.

I stared out the window in shock at the swirling cloud of sand. The Mojave got dust storms sometimes, I knew what those were like. This was an impossibly huge vortex of sand hundreds of feet high which suddenly started shooting red lightning bolts out of itself like some sort of final boss's special attack.

The storm was coming right for us, there was no time to turn around, and it was too big to drive around. I slammed on the breaks, reached up to the switchboard above my head and flipped a large red switch marked 'Red Alert'. Instantly steel shutters slid down over the windows, the door's magnetic lock clicked on, hydraulics hissed underfoot as the stabilizers lowered and leveled us out, and the cabin lights turned off as the main batteries disconnected, replaced by red lights as the emergency power came online.

"Right, that should ground us and keep the sand out. Everyone hit the deck just in case," I ordered.

We threw ourselves onto the floor just as the sandstorm hit us. The sand hit with a sound like a thousand needles scraping over tinfoil. The Sagan creaked and moaned as the winds shook her like a dog with a new toy. I could hear the steel stabilizers scraping against the road as the winds slowly started to push us backwards.

Suddenly the RV started to spin. Just a little at first, then faster and faster until I was slammed against the side of the couch like I was on the goddamn Gravitron. The scraping of steel on road stopped as the entire RV lurched, the wind picking us up like we were some kid's matchbox car.

At some point someone started screaming. It may have been me. It could have been all three of us. I couldn't tell you for sure.

The cabin lights flickered and died leaving us in the dark, spinning impossibly fast and shooting through the sky. A sound like a million old tvs blaring static filled the air. A sharp smell of burnt ozone filled the entire cabin. Something sent a jolt through the Sagan's shocks bouncing everything a good inch into the air.

Eventually, the emergency lamps flicked back on and everything was still. Absolutely still.

 ** _~~~~~o0o~~~~~_**

 _Tessarah Munro's Personal Log: Stardate 69072.9_

The red glow that lit the RV was appropriately hellish for the churning feeling in my gut. I felt like a scrambled egg. Amazingly nothing hurt, but i could feel something wet on my face. I wiped a finger across my cheek, instantly feeling an oily liquid under my fingers. "Oh shit… Please tell me this is a nose bleed."

Kaily moaned and looked towards me. "Yeah. Nosebleed."

"Oh good. No one died," Ed groaned. Pushing himself up into a sitting position, Ed rubbed his forehead. "So… that probably destroyed the solar panels. Hopefully we can fix them, or have enough power to get home."

"Son of a bitch! Do you have tools in here?" Kaily asked.

Ed nodded. "Yeah. Full tool kit." He stood up slowly and flipped the 'Red Alert' switch. Within a few seconds the cabin's normal lights came on, the door unlocked, and the steel shutters rolled back up.

Sunlight lanced into the RV like a laser, blinding me until I managed to squint past the glare and take a look outside. The road was nowhere to be seen. We were sitting on the side of a hill in a bunch of dry, withered plants, with red tinted steam rising up from the ground around us in a circle.

"Well… I can't see the road. How far do you think that blew us?" I asked.

Ed shrugged. "I'm just glad we are wheels down."

He tapped a few buttons on the dashboard and frowned. "Shit, we don't have a GPS signal."

Suddenly Ed blinked, grinned, and gave me one of his famous 'I'm so happy I can do this' looks.

"What?" I asked tentatively.

Ed cleared his throat and in a flawless Patrick Stewart impression ordered, "Our first priority is to ascertain the status of the Sagan. Chief Engineer Kaily and I will inspect the ship and repair damaged systems as they are found. Meanwhile, someone needs to figure out where we are. Lieutenant Munro, you're wearing a Hazard Suit, I want you to exit the ship and search for any landmarks we can use to identify our position."

I groaned, "God damn it Ed…"

He was right. I had designed my uniform to be a replica of Elite Force 2's hazard suit, and I didn't have the know how to fix the RV, but still, after 24 years of trekkies making that joke it was very old. "I knew I should have made myself a Commander."

"Alex Munro made Commander in the novels," Kaily quipped as she opened the RV door to step outside.

Defeated, I sighed and followed her outside. The RV's fiberglass decorative 'hull' was blackened, cracked, melted, and even had a few pieces missing from it. The steel plating Ed had welded over the original skin could be seen in a lot of places and was also blackened, but otherwise looked ok.

"Mother fucker! Yeah, there is no way the panels are okay. The glass covering them probably melted," Kaily swore. Grumbling, she walked around to the back of the RV and climbed up the ladder to the roof.

I started to walk off into the distance, there was a pretty tall hill a few hundred yards away that looked like a good place to get a look around the area. As I walked I heard Kaily call behind me, "Hey Ed! We have one completely intact panel, the others are damaged but not as bad as I thought. See if the battery is getting a charge."

I started to jog towards the hill. Time was not a good thing to waste in a desert. The three of us lived in Lancaster, smack dab in the middle of the Mojave. While the sandstorm would have everything hiding out right now, very soon the entire place would be swarming with coyotes, kingsnakes, rattlesnakes, about a million kinds of scorpions, and bobcats.

Sure it wasn't as deadly as the Mojave as seen in Fallout New Vegas, but there were still animals that would kill you if they had the chance. Not to mention the dangers inherent to desert environments like heatstroke and dehydration. Since we had stayed in the RV for the con to save money its water tank was low, possibly even empty. Not wanting to die of thirst in America's third biggest desert because a heavy metal album cover decided to come to life and throw us off the road, I focused on the task at hand. Figuring out where in the hell we were.

As I ran to the hill I did my best to look around. This was pretty far from Lancaster, but most of the Mojave looks the same. This patch of it was different though, it had way less plant life then it should. I know that seems like a weird thing to say about a desert but most of the Mojave is covered in dried up shrubs, and Joshua Trees can be seen in a lot of places.

This spot only had a few tiny shrubs, a few tumbleweeds, a handful of spindly saguaro cactus, and a crap ton of rusty colored rock formations. It looked more like a desert you would see in an episode of Looney Tunes, only a live action one directed by Peter Jackson with a budget equal to the GDP of a small nation. It wouldn't be out of the question for a part of the Mojave to look like this.

As I crested the hill, I spotted a small town on the horizon a few more hills a way. It looked to be about three or so kilometers away, and was pretty big. Big enough to have a mechanic at least, and big enough to have a road for people to commute to work on. I smiled and tapped my uniform's combadge, which was actually a bluetooth mic and speaker I had paired to my phone. "Call Kaily," I ordered.

"I'm sorry, there is no service in your area," Siri's mechanical voice replied.

"Great…" I muttered.

I mulled over if going back to the RV to tell everyone about the town or if going and getting some water for everyone would be best. It would take them a while to get the RV moving, or at least get as many panels working as they could. It was kinda hot out, they would probably be thirsty when done. I pulled out my wallet, checked to make sure I had cash, then started for the town.

It would take me maybe forty minutes round trip at a jog. Nothing I couldn't handle. Sure I'm a nerd but I also like to keep in shape, I do HEMA and Amtgard after all. Physical fitness can be nerdy too.

As I reached the bottom of the hill a loud buzzing sound reached my ears. An unsettling, insect like buzzing, the sort of buzzing one would expect from a monstrously huge fly. My first thought was 'Cazador! Whip out the flame thrower!'. Then I reassured myself that this was real life, so it was probably just a Tarantula hawk wasp. Then I remembered that a Cazador was just a giant Tarantula hawk wasp, and realized that whatever was making the buzzing had to be at least a meter long.

Just before I turned to run back to the RV screaming for Ed to get his Mossberg, a shiny black thing dropped from the sky, landing halfway up the hill ahead of me. I felt my heart skip a beat as the first thing I noticed was a glossy black exoskeleton, then I noticed that despite two pairs of large dragonfly like wings it wasn't a massive bug.

It looked more like what a kid might doodle a pony as, only with insect features, and you know, real. It had four legs and looked like it would stand about as tall as my chest, a waspish build, large head, dull gray green horse-like tail, really big solid green eyes, a smooth, slightly curved unicorn-like horn, and a mane which would be better described as a spiky kinda-sorta-mullet hair cut.

It was adorable! It looked like a quadrupedal version of someone's anthro insect fursona. It even had a human-like mouth and short rounded anthro style muzzle. Normally I don't like quadrupeds, but I did like bug-girl art and that thing demanded a hug.

Two more things dropped from the sky. I felt my brain punch itself as I realized they were technicolor pegasi clad in what looked like brass armor. Maybe pegasi wasn't the best term, they had the same proportions as the bug thing but also had a few feline features, triangular ears, small muzzles instead of the normal horse face, and their wings were way smaller then they should have been. But what else do you call a hoofed, horse-like animal with bird wings?

The two pegasi said something in a language I didn't recognize. As in they spoke. With words. I didn't react to this, my brain was still processing what I was seeing. Only when the bug thing started to run towards me screaming for help in English did my brain let me do something.

"What the actual fuck?" I demanded. Reality refused to answer.

"Please! They'll kill me!" the bug thing begged in a creepy-pleasant, clearly female voice.

A bug girl was pleading for me to save her from two armored pegasi. I understood what was happening now, I had forgotten to take my Zyprexa today and the RV's death spin triggered a psychotic break. Kaily would find me if I made enough noise and she kept my backup meds on her. At least this time I wasn't being chased by hungry xenomorphs, and was aware I was hallucinating this time so I could have a little fun.

Falling into the role this particular break from reality was giving me I nodded. "Get behind me miss, I'll save you from those flying feather dusters."

Ignoring the adorable little thing as it ran behind me I tapped my combadge. "Siri, play sparring playlist two. Max volume."

The two pegasi hesitated as I slipped into a krav maga stance and the energetic sound of Rhapsody's The Wizard's Last Rhymes shattered the air. But only for a second, then one of them yelled something and they rushed down the hill at me. Hoping that realizing you were hallucinating worked like lucid dreaming I threw my left hand in front of me and tried to fire off a ki blast. I had just enough time to be disappointed before they were on me.

The blue one jumped, twisted and launched a flying dragon kick at me. I was in awe, it was like when a Raccoon stands up and goes all bipedal for a few minutes only with kung-fu worthy of a Jackie Chan movie. I had enough time to think 'good one brain' before the kick connected squarely with my chest and I was thrown onto my back.

Across all my hallucinations one thing remained constant, I never felt anything. That kick hurt like hell, and so did landing squarely on a pointy rock. As my breath exploded from my lungs one thought filled my brain, this was actually happening. I was in a fucking fistfight with four foot tall pegasi, and right now they were kicking my ass.

Quickly getting my breath back I smashed my knee up into the blue pegasus's groin. He shouted something and staggered off me. The second he was off I rolled to the side, twisted and got back up to my feet. I fell back into my stance, but this time was actually ready for a real fight and not to play hero in the land of make believe.

The red one turned, spotted his buddy laying on the sand holding his groin, and rushed me. He sprinted on all fours, but at the last moment reared up to throw a human-like punch with a hoof at me. I knocked the punch aside with my left forearm and countered with a quick jab and a screamed "Ki-ya!" for good measure.

Amazingly the pegasus dodged the punch by leaning to one side. He dropped back down to all fours, turned, and bucked. I jumped back, his hooves missing me by centimeters. I snapped one foot down in an ax kick, he sidestepped and reared up again throwing a few jabs. I blocked the first two but his third and fourth hit me right in the tits.

In case you don't know that hurts really bad, and makes a girl very mad. I reached out with both hands, growling savagely from the pain, sized his forelegs, jerked him forward and slammed my right knee into his chest Muay Thai style. As the air rushed out of him I felt something snap under my knee.

I let go of him and he dropped like a sack of potatoes, face clenched in a very human pained expression. I didn't think I hit him hard enough to break a rib. Noting that pegasi bones apparently are hollow or otherwise brittle I took a step back. I didn't want to kill a mythological creature that I had somehow found myself in a fistfight with.

The blue pegasus shouted something in whatever language he spoke. He sounded very distressed and pretty mad. Remembering the bug girl spoke English I shouted, "Tell him he can get his friend and leave or I can break both-er all of his knees. His choice."

The bug girl's voice quickly rattled off what I hoped was a translation. The pegasus gritted his teeth angrily, I adjusted my stance and threw a few palm strikes. Just when I thought he was going to charge the red one hissed something in a pained voice and the blue's enraged expression softened slightly.

As the red one staggered to his hooves and limped off a short ways the bug girl asked, "Is your universal translator not working?"

"Um- what?" I blinked and gave her a quick confused look before turning back to make sure the pegasi were backing off.

She frowned in the absolutely most adorably sad way I had ever seen in my life. "I'm sorry. Is my English bad? I could try a translation spell but I am low on energy. I burned too much fighting them."

I couldn't not answer her, literally. Something deep in my heart and mind demanded I care for and protect the adorable thing. "No, your English is amazing. How do you know what a universal translator is?"

The blue pegasus took off, picked up his friend and started to fly towards the town I had seen earlier. Realizing I was watching a pegasus in armor fly off carrying a wounded comrade away from me after a battle and was not having a psychotic episode if my bruised breasts were any indication, I changed my question. "Scratch that, what the hell are you?"

She frowned, bit her lip revealing half feline, half vampire fangs, "I think my people's name translates best as changelings, but I could be wrong. You don't recognize us? We've been sending messages into space for years now!"

"Err… you don't seem to understand. You are the alien here, this is Earth," I pointed out.

She shook her head no. "No, this is Equis, only class M planet in the Celestial system. My homeworld… Don't you have a ship in orbit?"

I blinked twice as my brain did it's best to understand what she had said and failed. She grinned suddenly and exclaimed, "Oh! Hang on!" She then shut her eyes tightly.

"What are you-"

When she opened her eyes, she looked me over and nodded, "Yep! You must have come through the gate spell, you're still glowing with thaumaturgic radiation. Don't worry it's harmless."

The words gate and thaumaturgic caught my attention. I played enough D&D to put the pieces together. "Did this gate look like a sandstorm that was spitting red lightning bolts?"

"Probably," she nodded, closing her eyes again, "I normally see in the ultraviolet spectrum so I didn't see the color, but an electrically charged sandstorm is a good description."

"So, you are saying that we fell through a wormhole and are on an alien planet?" I asked, putting everything together in my head as I spoke.

She frowned for a moment then asked, "A wormhole is a space-time anomaly and not a hole left by a worm, right?"

I nodded.

"Then yes," suddenly her eyes went wide, she gasped and bounced from hoof to hoof in an adorable little happy dance. Then her voice filled my head, I'm talking to an alien! I'm the 'ling who makes first contact! Nyee!

A bug girl just squeed at making first contact, with me. I was on an alien planet. Talking to an alien. Who apparently was a telepathic pony-like bug girl.

She beamed a huge, delighted grin at me and asked, "We have been watching the dramatized recordings of your Federation's hero's missions for generations! It's an honor to meet you! You won't be stranded here, we have a subspace transmitter working at the hive and you know the Federation frequencies so you can call them to pick you up."

"Y-you do?" I asked thoroughly confused. What was she even talking about? Why was she treating me like a member of Starfleet?

As she nodded happily in response, I remembered that I was in a fleet uniform. She said her species watched… Oh no, her species had been watching Star Trek. They thought the show as some sort of retelling of real missions, I was trapped in a real life version of Galaxy Quest.

I opened my mouth to explain that this was just a costume but stopped as my sense of self-preservation kicked in. If her species thought Trek was real, and had for generations, nothing I could say would make her stop believing that false reality. Especially not when a living breathing human was standing in front of her in a fleet uniform. If I said the uniform was fake, she would conclude I was impersonating an officer.

A quote from Ghost Busters came to mind, 'When someone asks you if you're god, you say yes!' I threw on a smile and nodded. "That's great! Two more of my crew are over the hill behind me with our ground vehicle. We were camping out while on shore leave and well I guess chanced upon a spacial rift. My name's Lieutenant Munro what's-"

Her jaw dropped. "The Lieutenant Munro?"

"No, he was my great grandfather," I lied. Thank god I played so many RPG's, coming up with a character on the fly was practically my special talent. It was partially true anyways, my great grandfather was a Lieutenant in World War Two.

Ignoring how an alien species got a hold of a copy of a video game for now, I asked again, "What's your name?"

"Oh!" she snapped one foreleg up into a salute, "Ensign Ad'ika, Scout for the Emerald Hive currently assigned to keep an eye on…" Her face fell. "Er- I was assigned… Sort of botched it. The Captain asked me to check out the anomaly you arrived in and the ponies saw me in my real form. Thanks for saving me! They seriously would have killed me if you hadn't been there."

I mentally face palmed, they even modeled their civilization after Starfleet. I was on the planet of the nerds. "Hey no problem, I like insectoids."

I blinked, fully realizing that I was standing on an alien planet. I, Tess Munro, lowly gas station attendant, was the second human to set foot on an alien world, the first human to make first contact with a weirdly cute alien species. I laughed and felt myself grin as wide as I could. If I wasn't dreaming, life just went from the worst thing ever, to the best thing ever.

There was only one way I could make sure I wasn't dreaming, or having the first break where I felt something. I would have to see if Kaily and Ed could see Ad'ika too. "Would you like to meet my Captain and girlfriend?"

A telepathic squee and rapid series of nods indicated her answer was yes.


	4. Chapter Three

**_~~~~~~o0o~~~~~~_**

 _Chief Engineer's Log: August 10th, 1502_

Sorry Tess, but Ed wins the dating system war. It makes no sense to use the stardate when none of our clocks do. The math is easy, but doing it every time we want to write down the time is just irritating.

Oh stop complaining about proper procedure and go hug the bug girl some more. No seriously, go ahead. I'm not jealous. Just let me do the log entry you asked me to do.

The Sagan wasn't as banged up as she looked to be. The outer layers of just about everything had been badly sandblasted, and lightning strikes had melted most of the fiberglass skin. The solar panels' glazing was equally damaged but, aside from one panel which took a direct hit, everything underneath was working just fine according to my multi-meter. In fact, they were running at a much higher efficiency than they should have been, most likely due to leftover electrons in the system from the lightning strikes.

The worst of the damage was a ruptured power cell which looked to have had all the energy of a lightning bolt go right through it. It was a simple matter to bypass the damaged cell, and the remaining ones should have enough power for us to get home on. Ed had some spare parts back home where a proper fix could be done.

I closed the access hatch in the kitchen floor and locked it into place. "Right, that should do it. See if the motors start up."

Ed turned the key and after a few seconds the buzz of the Sagan's electric motors hummed softly. "Looks like we're all good. It looks like were losing charge in the batteries faster than normal, but we are getting enough sun to move on solar alone if we have to. We should be able to make it a few hundred miles."

"Good. That will get us to Lancaster. I have work tomorrow, but I'll stay over until we can get this girl fixed up, ok?"

"Sounds- Oh hey, Tess's back," Ed's voice suddenly took on a concerned tone, "She looks… um-you got her meds, right?"

I facepalmed, realizing we had sent Tess off on her own after a really stressful accident. "Dammit… Yeah, it's in my pocket. I should have realized she wouldn't be ok. I could have sworn she took her meds this morning."

I stood up, fished the small packet of two pills out of my right pocket, and moved to open the door only to have Tess quickly open it from the outside, step in, and close it before moving directly into a rant, "Ok so one of three things is going on: option A, I am having a psychotic break; option B, I am dreaming; or option C, this is actually happening. Due to the fact that my ribs are still hurting from that kick, I am pretty sure that it's option C. So I need you two to play along for a second while I check to see if I've snapped or literally the best thing ever just happened. I am going to walk back outside and come back in just a minute. If I have someone else with me for the love of god pretend to actually be Starfleet members, because this is a 'if someone asks if you are god scenario.' If I come back alone, Kaily please fetch my meds and we will need to schedule an appointment with Doctor Kessler because I'm getting a sense of touch with my hallucinations now. Right back in a sec!"

"Wait what?" Ed and I asked together.

Tess sighed. "It's simple. If I come back with an alien bug girl, roleplay as a Federation officer. Because that means we fell through a wormhole and are on an alien planet and they apparently went all Galaxy Quest."

Before I could stop her, Tess stepped out of the RV and started to jog back over the hill she had gone to a second ago. "Okay this is a bad one. Ed, if she goes crazy help me get her still so I can get her to take her meds," I groaned.

"Way ahead of you," he sighed.

It's a terrifying thing to see a loved one in the grips of mental illness. A lot of people have grandparents with dementia or alzheimer's, and while that's a sad situation at least it's because they are old. When it's someone your own age completely caught in a false reality, there's the added horror of realizing that it could just as easily be you.

Ed and I climbed out of the Sagan just as Tess stopped about halfway up the hill and shouted, "Ok, they know you're coming now."

Ed sighed, "Yep she-"

He stopped mid sentence as a large, glossy, black colored insect-like creature poked it's head over the top of the hill. I felt my heart skip a beat as the creature stepped over the hill top and started jogging towards us. It was a big, black and green four-legged bug.

I hate bugs. They trigger a deep primal urge to squish them in me. An urge I felt the second I saw the four foot tall insect until it was about thirty yards away from me. In that instant the creepy, terrifying, disgusting feeling I get from insects vanished. As if someone flipped a switch, I noticed all the various small details about the creature like it's large eyes, human-like mouth, happy expression, and hair cut shaped mane which made it look absolutely adorable.

"The fuck? Did that thing just turn cute?" I asked, turning to look at Ed.

He nodded slowly. "Yeah… I guess it was just too far away to see the little fangs and her expression."

"How do you know it's a female?" I asked curiously, my brain trying to piece together why my opinion suddenly changed.

"Well it looks like an ant, aren't all ants female?" he asked, "Besides, look at her face, that's a female face."

I looked again. It was a female face! She had a clearly female face, much like the sort you would see on any given anthro character. I could see how my instinctive responses toward insects would make me ignore her people-like features, but what had made me notice them?

When she got close enough I simply noticed, like my brain was asked to take another kinder look at her. She had made me notice them! She was an insect, but a highly evolved one; perhaps she had some sort of pheromone signature which humans just so happened to like. If so, that could be a defence mechanism or a weapon.

Before I could decide which was more likely, and whether or not we were going to be attacked by some sort of quadrupedal predatory insect, Tess and the creature walked up to Ed and I. The bug girl raised a foreleg and actually waved before saying, in English, "Hi! It's an honor to meet members of Starfleet! My people have been hoping to contact you for generations!"

Ed's jaw dropped. "You speak English? How does an alien bug girl speak English?"

"Son of a bitch!" I cursed under my breath, "The 'Aliens Speaking English' trope applies to real life!" This was a bitter disappointment to me, I always had a soft spot for 'First Contact Math' stories.

"Er- I was taught it in school. We watch your species recordings all the time and translators spells take up too much power. It's best to learn the language yourself," she replied, ears drooping a little.

It suddenly hit me that I was talking to an alien. I'm not an idiot or anything, it's just that this was so alien to my normal daily life that my brain needed to catch up with what was happening. Tess had said we somehow were on an alien world, that she had found an alien, that they thought we were members of Starfleet, and that she was pretty sure things would go 'angry natives' if we didn't play along. Since she apparently wasn't having an episode, I had to trust her judgement.

Clearing my throat, I knelt down to get closer to eye level with her and held out a hand. "Sorry, you just took us by surprise. I'm Lieutenant Commander Kaily Munro, I'm guessing you met my wife Tess."

"Ensign Ad'ika, Scout for the Hive," she replied shaking my hand with her hoof. To my amazement, she somehow was able to grip my hand and even gave it a firm squeeze like a proper handshake. Apparently her species had some form of tactile telekinesis.

"C-captain Tylor, nice to meet you," Ed stammered.

"May I ask a question?" I asked as I stood back up.

"I'm happy to answer anything I can!" the bug girl, Ad'ika, replied.

"Our species is normally disgusted by insects. I was myself until you got closer. Can you explain that?" I asked, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

To my surprise she nodded. "Yes, my species emits a pheromonal agent which is meant to calm prey. It doesn't work on everything, and in fact it makes a lot of species nervous. Er- Don't worry we're not carnivores. I'm not going to hurt you or anything."

Ed frowned and went to ask the obvious question, but Tess beat him to it. "Hold on, you have a calming aura to hunt prey with but you are not a carnivore? Does this planet have walking plants?"

"Wait, this planet? This isn't Earth?" Ed asked quickly.

Ad'ika shook her head. "No, you came out of a… wormhole?" she asked looking up at Tess

Tess nodded. "That's the right word."

"I was asked to check it out by my Captain. For the record, this is my homeworld. Its name is Equis and its star is named Celestia but that will change if there ever is a new Princess of the Sun." Ad'ika blinked, and flashed a silly grin. "Oh! Almost forgot. You asked what we eat. We're emotivores, we feed on the energy left over from a sentient creature's emotions. You know, sort of like the Drella of Alpha Carinae Five. Only we have solid bodies."

"Excuse me for a moment, I need to talk to my crew in private. We have to discuss proper first contact procedures." Ed said slowly, choosing each word carefully, "Wait here while we talk aboard the Sagan. It won't take long."

She frowned, looking like a puppy someone just yelled at. "Ok… but please don't take too long. The two pegasi Lieutenant Munro drove off might get reinforcements."

"What?" Ed and I asked together.

"There appear to be multiple sentient lifeforms on this planet sir," Tess answered, "Ad'ika was fleeing two winged horse-like aliens of a similar size and build to her when I encountered her. Since she called for my help and mentioned the Federation by name I assisted as instructed by Section Eleven of the Prime Directive. In doing so I broke at least one rib in one of her attackers. They were sporting armor with matching emblems so it is very likely they are a part of a military or security force. She claims their species kills her kind on sight."

That would have been good information to know sooner. "We will be very quick, I promise. But we must be sure we are doing the right thing given the circumstances," I said, attempting to soothe things over. Pheromones making me like her or not, Ad'ika was definitely a sentient creature. Her feelings mattered.

Ed nodded and quickly walked into the RV. Tess and I entered just behind him, and the second I closed the door Ed hissed, "Are you insane! You see an alien and just attack it?"

"I thought I was having a psychotic break!" Tess hissed back.

Ed bit his lip, then nodded. "Okay, that's fair. But we are stranded on an alien planet and now-"

Ed stopped, blinked twice, then grinned. "We're on an alien planet!"

I grinned too. "I know!"

Tess nodded eagerly. "We just talked to a real alien, and she's adorable!"

"Well yeah, but that's alien pheromones talking," Ed said pursing his lips. I could tell he didn't like the idea of being influenced like that.

"Ed, you have seen my porn folder. I'd like her anyways," Tess informed teasingly.

"Ugh, don't remind me. I am never using your computer again," Ed groaned.

"Hold on, since when have you liked quadrupeds?" I asked curiously. Tess normally told me everything, even the kinda gross stuff.

"I don't, I guess changelings are just an exception. Besides they are sentient. So it's not bestiality even if she has four legs," she said with a smile, "I wonder if she would let me hug her?"

"Can we not talk about this?" Ed begged.

"Sorry," I apologized, "We should figure out what to do, and quick. Wait, her species' name is changelings?"

"Yeah why?"

I rubbed my chin in thought. "She said she eats emotions, and changelings are a type of fairy in Irish folklore that feed on love. That probably means she translated her species name, which implies they know a lot about human culture and history, so they likely have computers or other advanced technology."

Ed's eyes lit up. "Maybe they have some stuff they wouldn't mind giving us, or trading. I have some stuff in here we could part with."

"She told me her hive has a working subspace transmitter. So if you want to go home, it's probably a good idea to see if she will take us to her leader," Tess said in a bitter tone.

Her tone caught my attention. She only used that particular low, harsh, buzzing tone when she was thinking about something which upset her a lot. "Hon, what's wrong?"

Tess squirmed for a moment then opened up with a sigh. "I just saved a bug girl's life by fighting off two pegasi with my fists. That's basically a fantasy of mine since, like, ever minus the pegasi I mean. It's usually goblins or somthing. Also the bug girl is normally a biped. This world is awesome, I don't want to go back to ringing up people's booze. But you two probably want to go home, or at least will once the thrill of being here wears off… I don't want to choose between you guys and-"

Ed cut her off, "Are you out of your goddamned mind?"

Tess's face turned red, I could almost feel the anger welling up in her as Ed just insulted her feelings like that.

"Why the hell would I want to leave either?" Ed demanded, "To quote No Game No Life, 'Usually in a story, when the protagonists end up in another world, they try their best to find a way home. Why would they try to go back to a world like that?'."

Tess's face scrunched up. That wasn't the reply she had expected. "Huh?"

"You just punched out a mythological creature to save a bug alien," I reminded, "We are somewhere actually interesting, and apparently there is a whole community of people who want to see us. Now, Trek science may not be real, but I'm smart enough to pick up how whatever tech they use is working if I can see it's manual. I can pass as an engineer, you definitely can pass as a security officer Ms. Punches Pegasi, and Ed shouldn't screw up playing captain too hard."

"Hey!" Ed objected irritably, "Is that how this is going to go? Well think again! I'm in charge here by virtue of our little deception and that means I am going to do a good job of things! Now, lets figure out a quick and simple cover story to use with these… changelings and see where the wind takes us."

Tess beamed us a smile. "Thank god! I'm sorry for doubting you guys… One condition though… Kaily, remember when we decided we would have an open relationship?"

I groaned, "Yes… do you have to go Captain Kirk on the locals?"

She nodded. "They are cute, and apparently eat emotions. Also you've seen-"

I cut her off with a raised hand. "Yes, hon. I know. Don't squick Ed."

Tess wouldn't just drop this, she gushed over alien species from fiction too much to just ignore the… possibilities when given the chance to try her fantasies in reality. The only way I could convey the stupidity of her desire to boink the bug girl was to go full science on her, "I suppose that she count's as a person, so I wont take offence if you try to pursue a relationship with her or given she is an insect, her several hundred siblings. However, you need to keep in mind this is not one of your hentai games. You don't know what diseases she might be carrying, so if you do somehow seduce her, I won't do anything with you until if or when we find a doctor who can assure me it's safe. Furthermore, she may not even have sex. Many insects reproduce via cloning, but if she does reproduce, it's safe to assume that means she will lay eggs inside of you. Now since many insects larva eat their way out of a host organism-"

Tess put a finger over my lips. "Yeah I know. I'm not stupid, I obviously am going to ask if it would be safe first. But still, I kinda have to try. It's like if you ran into a catgirl."

I groaned. She had a very good point, stupid sexy catgirls. "Stupid point making xenophilic wife… Fine, but I am serious! Make sure it's safe first, see a doctor."

"Can we please stop talking about interspecies sex? Thank you. I'm going to let her know that she can come aboard so we can get out of here," Ed informed quickly.

As he moved to open the door I couldn't help but sigh. Knowing Tess's love of aliens, I would have to get used to the idea of living in a three way relationship inside of three months. On the upside, life had finally given me something interesting to experience!

"Hold on a moment," I said.

"What for?" Ed asked.

"We need to start off living on an alien planet properly," clearing my throat I intoned, "Space: The final frontier."

Ed caught on instantly. He grinned and added, "These are the voyages of the Winnebago Sagan."

"It's indefinite mission," Tess gleefully added, "To explore a strange new world, to seek out new life and new civilizations."

I held up one hand and counted down from three on my fingers. When I reached zero we all said in unison, "To boldly go where no one has gone before!"

I smiled, silently adding, 'Thanks for a reason to live universe. I owe you one.'

 **~~~~~~o0o~~~~~~**

 _Ad'ika's Personal Log: 12th of Harvestide '09 EoH_

I have to admit, my heart fell a bit as they got into their vehicle without me. I was certain they wouldn't just go somewhere without telling me, and it looked to be about the size of a shuttle craft so it probably had living quarters. Also I'm pretty sure my Captain would want to consult the regulations and his crew before proceeding with an unexpected first contact too.

Still, I just got to meet real live humans! That's a dream for almost every single Emerald in the Hive. Mostly because we want to get Queen Phoenix up and running so we can go to space too, but a lot of us really like humans. It's their appearance really, bipeds are just cool. Also, humans' various fun bits are spread out where if you snuggled one from the back your hooves would each have something to grope.

I guess you could call them fetishized aliens, but not in the way you think. We lack the taboos most species have when it comes to sex. It's a part of eating love, we're taught from an early age how to make creatures feel it so we can eat it. Sex is an easy, fun, and generally safe way to do that, and one of our best hunting strategies. While enjoyable, it's not the same for us as it is for other species.

To a changeling, the biggest way to express love and appreciation for someone is to cuddle with it. It's not something I could easily explain, it's just a thing we do. What do you do with friends, loved ones, general acquaintances you actually like? Cuddle with them.

Mostly I just wanted to snuggle up with a human, they just look comfy. Of course snuggles tended to make me hungry, and well there's someone else right there who can whip up a good meal for me pretty easily, but I doubt I could even get that far with Tess. Their Chief Engineer mentioned their species didn't like insects much.

So, despite my curiosity about how humans looked under their uniforms, and that 'snugglebug urge' I'd been having since I saw Ms. Munro, I would have to make sure she was ok with the idea. Then make sure she was ok with a few other ideas. One of which being letting me take a photo. I have a pony pen pal who just might go and murder me if I don't get her a photo.

There was one more thing to think about, if she and I did do more then snuggle sometimes would we be ok? I mean, that would probably be fun and nice and exotic, but who knows what could happen? Changelings can breed with lots of different species, so who knows what could happen with aliens?

A sister of mine almost died from her pregnancy with two pony hybrids. She knew sleeping with a male pony could result in her giving live birth, but she went ahead anyways. It took three doctors and Queen Phoenix's help to save her and the foals. I'm glad they saved everyone. We could use more hybrids in the hive, they have extra tasty emotions.

While I really wanted to just glomp Tess, I knew I should wait until I could ask Queen Phoenix if there would be problems. She should be able to answer that question. It wasn't about advanced technology, and with a real life human there… My eyes widened as the full realization of what three humans on Equis meant.

Closing my eyes I opened my hive-link and sent a message to Captain Skriit. Sir! Ensign Ad'ika reporting, priority one mission update, code mauve!

The reply came instantly, Tell me every single last detail you can remember.

I spent a minute filling the Captain in on what had happened. My escape, rescue, and first contact. He listened patiently as I explained everything I could then asked, Their Captain is determining what course of action to take as we speak?

Yes sir.

Captain Skriit's voice took on a tone of glee, desperation, and extra authority as he spoke. Ensign Ad'ika, as you have made first contact, I am assigning you to be our temporary Ambassador to the Federation. This assignment will be made permanent if you can convince them to accompany you to our hive. I am ordering you to extend a personal invitation from me to join me for dinner on the first possible evening... Just a moment Ensign. Her Highness wishes to speak to you. Brace for relay.

I winced and lay down in the sand. Her Highness's artificial telepathy was far more powerful than a changeling's mind was meant to take. She toned it down as best she could but most 'lings get headaches or migraines from her. It's not her fault her transceivers have a minimum power threshold.

The second I felt her connect to my link my head started to pound. Queen Phoenix's powerful and mind consuming, yet kind and motherly voice filled my mind. Her speech resolved into words after she stopped talking and I could resume thinking. Well done my child, but the humans are not safe here. You must do everything in your power to bring them to me. Our world is toxic to them. The air is different from their homeworld, and while thaumaturgical current is harmless to everything native to Equis it will slowly kill them. Fear not, I can save them. In return, they can allow me to utilize my full abilities to help you, and all my other children. You must tell them so they know they require medical attention. That will ensure they come to our home.

A tinge of fear filled my mind. If they couldn't live here for long, what would interacting with me do? Would I be sick? Could my hoof shake have killed their Chief Engineer? Gulping nervously, I replied, A-as you will my Queen.

I am sorry to pain you with further speech, but I feel your fears. Please forgive me for this.

A spike of pain rippled through me as Her Highness increased her link's power in order to to read my memories. I hated it when she did that, it made me feel powerless, but I can't blame her for doing it. She can not disobey her creator's programming even if she wants to, and she is programed to ensure mental health.

I see. Fear not little one, humans and changelings are perfectly biologically compatible. Yes, even for 'snuggles'. Furthermore, the nano-immunity graft I gave you will keep you safe from any diseases which might have accompanied them here. Do as you will, but keep in mind human pheromones should affect you in the same way your own affect them. Be sure you truly wish to do what you desire before you do it, or you may regret your actions later. I am sorry for the pain, farewell.

I sat up slowly, wishing I could do the pony thing of rubbing my head to make the headache go away. "Stupid insectoid non-centralized brains... " I muttered irritably.

As Her Highness's words sank in I tilted my head curiously. Human pheromones make me like them? Why? How did she know that? I supposed she simulated us interacting, after all she did have files on human anatomy. The idea didn't upset me, if hanging out with humans meant I would feel like cuddling up with one that's fine. I wanted to before I met real ones anyway.

"Hold on," I muttered to myself, "she said perfectly compatible." I reached into my saddlebag and dug out part of my Scout's kit I hadn't used in years.

Every Scout is issued certain equipment to make our jobs easier. Since we are meant to direct Harvesters to food, one piece of equipment Queen Phoenix designed for us was a small lens which could detect emotional energy, guide us too it, and display exactly how much someone had which we could safely take. Sure, a changeling can do that on our own, but the device did it at a better range, the precise measurement was nice, it let us use our normal eyesight while still seeing food, and looked really cool.

Since they basically did a Scout's job for them we called them scouters. Our Queen laughed for an hour when she learned what we had taken to calling them. Apparently she was inspired to make them after seeing a similar device from an ancient entertainment program stored in her databanks. I guess it was kinda funny that we called them the same thing as the show did, but I mean, what else are you going to call a small food locating sensor?

I stuck my scouter on to the side of my head under my left ear, blinked in irritation as my left eye's vision was suddenly tinted pink, and tapped the scan button. Instantly three sharp points of white light blinked into existence on the lense. Focusing my vision on one I sparked the scouter with just a hair of magic, asking it to focus on just the one I was looking at.

After a moment the scouter displayed the energy reading and my jaw dropped. The reading of 9.02 kilohugs wasn't too impressive, most species produced comparable amounts. The crazy thing was the energy efficiency of their emotions. Unable to believe the data I tapped scan again, then again, and again.

The conclusion was inescapable. Human emotions have a 93 percent energy efficiency. If I was to feed off them only seven percent of the energy would be lost. This was insane! Ponies held the highest energy efficiency at 38 percent, to get a day's worth of food we had to extract several thousand extra kilohugs per pony which meant the pony was at risk of injury from having too much energy drained. A human would be perfectly fine.

Suddenly the vehicle's door opened and Captain Tylor leaned out, "Hey we would like to- Where did you get a scouter? Wait, scratch that, how do you even- I… what?" His face scrunched up into what was easily the single most confused expression I had ever seen a living creature make.

"Er- Queen Phoenix makes them so we can find food easier. She said she based the design on an old program," I explained.

He was silent for a few minutes before asking, "So, your species has produced scouters and uses them to find love, which you eat? How would you display love as a power level?"

That was an easy question to answer. "We measure love in a unit called the hug. It's named after, well hugs. One hug is equal to the amount of emotional energy produced by a loving couple's hug after twenty-eight hours apart. Well, at least, on average. The same act could produce a kilohug depending on how much each loves the other. We're working on a better definition… but that's hard for emotional physics."

"You measure love in hugs," he laughed, slamming a fist into the side of the vehicle, "That's amazing… Hold on, if that's meant to help you find food, are you hungry?"

I nodded.

"Come on in. My crew and I would like to accept your invitation to visit your hive. I will be driving, but I am sure that you can convince Lieutenant Munro to let you eat her out- er I mean munch on some- No, bad brain!" Captain Tylor leaned into the vehicle's cabin and shouted, "God damn it Tess! Now I can't think about how to feed her without thinking of changelingus… Son of a whore!"

I giggled at his easily flustered nature. Thank goodness this Starfleet Captain wasn't some stick up the butt regulations machine. "Actually, my-"

"Fuck you Ed!" Kaily interrupted, "You have known her species name for all of five minutes and you already use it to make the worst pun I have ever heard!"

"I know! I'm sorry! This is all Tess's fault!" he moaned in response.

"Er- if I could-" I tried to speak again.

"Well now that you just blew my chance at possibly getting together with her maybe we can get going?" Tess growled from inside the cabin.

This is exactly why I hate vocal communication. Focusing my mind to send my thoughts to everything within the vehicle I said, His pun has not reduced any chances of you hanging out with me. In fact it let me know you might be open to some snuggles after all, but that's not important right now. As you may have guessed, my species is telepathic-

"You don't say," Ed mumbled, "How about some warning next time you intrude into our brains?"

I'm sorry. This is my native language, and I was frustrated because you weren't letting me speak, I apologised.

"Oh. Sorry, I feel like a dick now," Ed appologised, "What were you trying to say?"

I contacted my hive while you were in your vehicle. My Captain has asked if you would like to join him for dinner as soon as possible, but there is a very important reason you should come to our hive. Our Queen told me that humans are not able to survive for more than a few days here so you are all-

"Oh fuck!" Tess exclaimed, "How did we space the idea of a deadly alien atmosphere?"

Before their panic could set in I shouted, We can fix it! Our Queen has very advanced medical technology. You will be fine, she has to help you it's part of her programming.

"How can you be sure she can help us? Oh god! It's an alien sun, who knows what kind of radiation exposure were getting?" Kaily said, sounding panicked.

She's a human built colony ship and her medical bay is fully automated. Of course she can heal you! I said soothingly.

Ed stepped into the cabin, leaving the door open behind him. "Right! Ignoring why and how for now, lets get going before we die from alien ebola. Ad'ika, please help me navigate."

I hopped into the vehicle and blinked. The interior was nothing like what I expected. The recordings showed human built vessels as being mostly grey with square rooms and objects, with full color computer displays. This vehicle however featured rounded shapes and arches in it's design, and the few displays I could see were high contrast orange and black vector panels.

Realizing I was just gaping at the scenery, I closed the door with my telekinesis.

"Woah!" Tess exclaimed, "Did you just telekinetically close the door?" As she asked, she looked at me with an expression I really hoped wasn't hunger.

"Yes. My species is able to use magic to a small degree. I will happily show you once I show your Captain the way to our hive."

"Magic?" Kaily asked curiously.

"I'm not a mage, I couldn't explain it to you in full if I wanted to. Some of our Royals have compared our abilities to a few of the alien species seen in your documents though." I looked around, spotted a small section with two chairs at the vehicle's noise and pointed at it with a hoof. "Is that the cockpit?"

Ed leaned around one of the chairs which had hidden him from my view. "Yes. Sit down and help me get going."

I looked at the chair, and noticed a five point harness attached to the seat. I assumed it was for keeping you in place when the vehicle was moving over rough terrain or in turbulence. That meant it would be a good idea to buckle in, but unfortunately my body wouldn't fit comfortably into the seat and it was a two day flight to the hive. I didn't want to sit on my back for that long. "I'll be there in just a moment."

Turning around I looked at Tess curiously for a few minutes, studying her shape and how she moved. I was familiar with apes already and humans were clearly descended from them. Also I was very familiar with humans thanks to watching Trek. It shouldn't be too hard to adjust my mental template to take a human shape. The only problem was I didn't know how they looked without the clothing in the way, and I was not skilled enough to morph clothing yet.

"That seat won't be comfortable to sit in, so I want to shapechange into a human form to fit-"

Tess's eyes bugged out of her head for a moment, it was fascinatingly creepy. "You're a shapeshifter?" she exclaimed.

I nodded. "Yes. It's what my species is best known for. We take the shape of other species and use that to blend in and get food… anyways I would like to take a human form so I can sit comfortably. Could you take off your uniform? I'll need to get a good look at you. Or any of you, I'm not picky."

Much to my confusion, there was a full five minutes of awkward silence. Kaily suddenly cleared her throat. "Humans have a nudity taboo. We usually only undress for loved ones and to bathe."

Oops. Well now I felt awkward, I hadn't even considered how their culture might work. Some ambassador I was. I giggled nervously. "Oh, sorry! Er… I've never heard of any species like that. I'll just take a shape kinda like yours then. I doubt you have a spare uniform for me to use and well I don't want to be rude."

I closed my eyes and focused. Deciding to confuse them as little as possible, I focused on my own shape. Every curve of my exoskeleton, every vein in my wings, my mane and tail, mouth, nose, eyes. I pictured them as clearly as I could, rearranged them to fit a human-like shape, envisioned my hooves as hands, my hands as feet, my torso as having those two bouncy bumps human females had. I pictured me but as human as possible, while still remaining myself.

I felt the tingle of my magic as I shifted, green flames engulfing my body for an instant. I opened my eyes, flexed my new fingers curiously, then watched as Tess turned beet red and fell over unconscious. "Oh my gosh! Is she ok? Her Highness said magical energy could be harmful to you I didn't think-"

Kaily held up a hand. "It's fine! She just fainted because you turned into her desktop image." Kaily helped her up into a seat along one wall and buckled her in. "She will wake up in a minute or two. Just… warn her before you do that again. As awesome as it is Tess, well, she likes bugs."

"Oh. So this form is highly arousing to her?" I asked.

She nodded. "Yes. You might want to…" Kaily trailed off then sighed. "Ok, full disclosure. Tess and I are a couple, but we have an open relationship. She found you cute in your previous form, but now that she knows you are a shapeshifter she will likely be all over you. Just… If you don't want to be more than friends with her please let her down gently, ok?"

I nodded slowly. "I promise I will if it comes to that." I doubted it would. She was very snuggly looking, apparently a god damn buffet for a changeling, and would likely want to stick with me. Why would I reject someone like that?

I slipped into the other seat in the vehicle's cabin. "Okay so we need to go east. It's a two day long flight at my cruising speed. How fast can this go?"

"On this terrain? Probably about one hundred and forty kilometers per- Woah!" Ed exclaimed as he finally turned to look at me. Clearing his throat Ed called, "Kaily? I have a bathrobe in the top left drawer in the bathroom. Please get it for our guest. So, what direction do we go?"

"From here?" I took a few seconds to think. "Head east by one hundred and ten degrees."

Ed nodded, turned a key, and with a hum the vehicle started moving. "Make it so!" I added teasingly.

"Oi," Ed exclaimed, "That's my bit."


End file.
